The present invention relates generally to identification of called and calling parties to each other, and more specifically to providing information to called and calling parties indicating the context of a communication event.
In the field of communications, there has been a trend toward providing users with increased functionality to better manage and control their communication media. For example, in telephony, many service providers offer caller identification and caller name services to their customers. These services allow the called party to see the phone number and name of the calling party before answering the telephone. Based on this limited information, the called party can decide whether to answer the call.
Simply providing the caller's phone number and name, however, often does not provide enough information for the called party to determine whether to answer the call. Suppose, for example, the caller information indicates that John Doe is calling from a New York number. Unless the called party knows John Doe, this information is not helpful in deciding to accept or decline the call.
Also, current systems provide no information to a calling party about a person to be called. There may be instances in which a party to be called does not wish to be disturbed, or only wishes to be disturbed for emergencies. The existing network does not provide a mechanism for sending this information to a calling party so that the calling party can make a decision as to whether to place the call.
In light of the foregoing, there is a need for a method to provide calling and called party context information to help them better decide whether and how to initiate or accept communications.